HOW LONG WERE YOU MARRIED?

Everyone who is familiar with The Nut knows I have a good friend in Miguel, my old Peace Corps buddy. But many don't know that I have an older dearer friend out in Colorado. We shall call him 'Sean'. He deserves as much mentioning as Miguel but doesn't get it because... well, he lives in Colorado. We catch up a couple times a week and always find something to debate about. Right now it's the nature of existence that he seems unable to be grounded on. In fact about the only things that we do agree on is that The Grateful Dead are superb and poetry is pointless. Sean has had a few jobs over the last few years. He has a tendency to quit or get layed off before securing his next job. Were in The Bush years after all, it happens to everyone. I'm not razzing him for that. Well... I guess I am. At least in this story. The other week I call him up at his place in the middle of the day. He has that day off so I thought I might catch him at home. Instead, I get his machine. Feeling devious I leave a message along these lines... "Hey man, I have been thinking about how you can tell Lisa (his wife and mother of his 2 kids) that you got fired last week without upsetting her too much. Give me a call." Well, wouldn't you know it that Lisa (his wife and mother of his 2 kids) was home sick that day and heard my message as I was leaving it. Needless to say, about an hour later I get a call from Sean. "Are you trying to get me divorced?" he asks informing me that his wife and mother of 2 kids (Lisa) overheard the entire message and failed to see it as a joke. We had a good laugh about that one. Well, at least I did. A week later Sean calls me up and says that I am no longer in the dog house with his wife (which I never understood anyways. All she had to do was call his work # and see if he answered before getting all concerned). It seems I was out of the dog house because Sean was going to be in it for awhile. The night before, Lisa (his wife of some 18 years) says to him "You never used to fart this much." Now I'm not sure what brought on this bout of brutal honesty. And I'm sure I don't care to know. 18 years. That's a mighty long time to learn when to say what's on your mind and when to simply shut the hell up. Some of us are faster learners than others I guess. His response: "Yeah, well, you didn't use to have so many lines and wrinkles." Upon hearing this I said "Dude, are you trying to get divorced?" We had a good laugh about that one. Well, at least I did.